top of page
Search
  • Writer's pictureTim Burns

When a Secret is No Longer a Secret

Least Privilege on Shared Systems

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash


Extending secure access on a heterogeneous system can be complex. One component of the system may have access to a secret, but another may not. And, of course, when a secret gets out, it isn't a secret anymore.


I'm designing a secret system on a third-party data integration tool and I ran across this article.


https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/the-right-way-to-store-secrets-using-parameter-store/


Important takeaways:


  • Encrypt secrets

  • Without giving containers and services an identity, it is not possible to protect and restrict access to secrets with access control policies

  • Give identity to only the project that needs the resource, not the whole environment

  • Use ephemeral resources to pass secrets (like environment variables)

  • Give the ephemeral resources hard-to-guess names - MY_SECRET:(some md5 hash)

  • Keep track of who knows your secrets




10 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Yes, there are. They are much better than me. I would be surprised if anyone read this blog. That's not true: I read this blog and here are some entries I'm leaving for myself. I spend at least 4

bottom of page